


Take the Hit

by PickleandtheQueen



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, Gift Fic, Torture, Yakuza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 13:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5871955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PickleandtheQueen/pseuds/PickleandtheQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gift Fic for WinchesterWarrenSon, set in her Yakuza AU, which I adore. I'd recommend reading those first before reading this, as it might not make whole lot of sense otherwise! </p><p>Piccolo, Chichi's bodyguard is injured in run of the mill duty, but finds himself facing people who are more interested in attaining information than killing him...although they don't seem to care if he dies in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take the Hit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WinchesterWarrenSon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterWarrenSon/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Enter the Demon Syndicate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3952864) by [WinchesterWarrenSon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterWarrenSon/pseuds/WinchesterWarrenSon). 



> There's some Spanish in here, and I apologize profusely if it's inaccurate; I haven't taken Spanish in years, and really regret it! 
> 
> Warnings for torture, mentions of torture, kidnapping, gang violence, etc

The last thing he remembered was being shot. 

_ He had slammed the door of Miss Chichi’s car just as bullet ripped through his side. He had hit the side of the car, signalling the driver to leave, pulling out his Colt Double Eagle and fired five rounds before another bullet hit him the chest. He could hear Miss Chichi’s car tires squealing as he hit his knees and the world went black. _

Where the hell was he now?

Piccolo groaned and tried to move, but his body would not cooperate. The bullet wounds screamed, and the sixteen-year-old bit down hard on his lip, holding back a whimper. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to determine the amount of damage he had sustained, and where he could be.

The floor was hard, cold. A bit wet. From his blood? No, his wounds felt as if they had been crudely dressed. Very. Crudely. 

So his people had not come back for him, then. Not yet. Maybe not ever, realistically. She might think him dead. Although, a sentimental part of him hoped, she might try and confirm his death. She had a soft spot for him. Besides, how would she explain his disappearance to Gohan? The Kid… he swallowed, and it hurt. He had to focus and get back to them.

His hands and feet were bound, and his head was pounding. Mouth dry. Stomach queasy. 

Okay. Bound, wounded, not gagged. That was something. His hands were bound behind him, so he could not try and not bite through the ropes. They were ropes, not handcuffs. That was something.  _ Oh… his head… _

A door creaked open loudly, and heavy feet stomped over to just outside of the room where he lay. His back was to the door. Piccolo inhaled slowly, and pretended to be unconscious as the door to his prison was opened. A meaty hand yanked him up by the shirt collar, the unexpected movement drew a yelp from the teen, blowing his cover. 

“Well, looks like someone’s awake.” Piccolo was a tall kid, and he was dangling a good several inches in the air. He was dropped as abruptly as he was lifted, and a foot was slammed into his ribs, eliciting another yelp of pain, followed by several aggressive curses in Spanish. “What’s a creepy little shit like you doing working so high up in the Ox Syndicate, huh? And close to Chichi?” The teen spit at his assailant and it earned him another kick to the ribs. And another, and another, and one more for good measure. Piccolo curled into a ball on reflex, screwing up his face in pain as one of the kicks hit the bandaged bullet wound in his side. The pain was too much, and he went limp. 

He woke later, propped up with a light in his face, lancing pain shooting through his body. He resolved to keep his mouth shut, no matter what these bastards did to him. He would not betray Miss Chichi. 

They were after standard information. Where had Chichi gone after he had been shot? How many guards did she have? What were the big political moves the Ox Syndicate was planning? Some of it, he didn’t even know. Couldn’t know. How high up did they think he was? He was the babysitter for crying out loud. 

And Miss Chichi’s favorite bodyguard. Okay. He could see why they thought he would know the information they were after. 

“Stubborn bastard,” something was glowing in the man’s hand. Piccolo’s face paled, although he tried to hide it. “Take his shirt off. Let’s see if this won’t loosen his tongue.” Struggling was futile, although he squirmed and wriggled and fought against his bonds until the glowing fire poker was pressed into the bullet hole in his side. The shriek torn from his lips was inhuman. He writhed and swore and called out to whatever Saints would listen until he was sure he would pass out again. The iron was pulled away, and he slumped over, only to be hauled back up by a cruel hand on his jaw. “Ready to talk?”

Once more, Piccolo spat in the face of his captor. He would die before he gave up anything worth hearing. 

He was unsure how long he had been held prisoner, but his captors’ methods of attempted information extraction had grown more desperate and sloppy as time wore on. They were bound to kill him on accident at this rate. At least, he thought morbidly, they had cauterized the bullet holes with the fire poker. Whether they had meant to or not, he was unsure, but at least he was not going to bleed out. On the other hand, they had removed the fingernails on his right hand with pliers. His hand had yet to stop throbbing in pain. It would take about six months for them to return to normal...assuming he lived that long.  _ Good thing I’m left handed. _

Swearing did little to distract him from the pain as his captors did their worst. So he prayed, all in Spanish. If he kept his thoughts in Spanish, he would continue to speak it. At least, at least this way, if he managed to keep his thoughts and words in Spanish, and he cracked, it would take them longer to gain any use out of his betrayal. He considered lying, lying and sending them into a trap of some sort, but that would only get him killed. And a part of him still held out hope that someone from his Syndicate would come save him. 

Miss Chichi wouldn’t leave him, would she? 

_ Yes she would _ , he reasoned. If she thought him dead. But… He turned his face heavenward, gritting his teeth and pinching his eye shut, she - or Goku - would want to confirm his death in order to protect any sensitive information he may know. 

The men holding him prisoner seemed to think that his prayers were information, and doubled their efforts, trying to encourage him to use a language they understood. 

 

~~~

 

“I’m not willing to give up on him. His body wasn’t left at the scene, and it hasn’t turned up mutilated as a warning.” Chichi crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “If he’s dead, they would have sent me his head in a box. That’s what they did the last time they came after me. Piccolo is alive, or at least he has been!” 

Leaving him after all those gunshots… It hadn’t sat right with her, but there had been nothing else to do. After all, he was the one who had shut the door.

The others seemed to doubt her, but she had dealt with this same group before. If Piccolo had been killed, she would know about it by now. Of that, she was certain. 

“With all due respect,” Tenshinhan began, “even if he is alive, we don’t know where he is. How are we supposed to get him back?”

“We…” her eyes flicked to Yamcha, “we actually have a sighting of the leader in the West Hampton Borough. Krillin is tailing him.”

“And you’re just telling me this  _ now _ ?” 

“We still don’t know where Piccolo is,” Yamcha’s tone and gaze were a little too direct, too bold, for her tastes, but his prowess as a sniper and his relative power under her husband awarded him that right. She closed her eyes, inhaled, held it the breath, and exhaled. Yamcha and Tien both knew that she was not one to anger. 

“The second you get anything, we’re going after him.” Everyone knew she had a soft spot for the boy. He was basically her son at this point. His connection with Gohan was profound, and through that bond...she had grown attached to him. 

“We?” Tenshinhan raised a thick eyebrow, the tattoo on his forehead crinkling. 

“I’ll go by myself if you don’t want to,” Chichi replied. Her voice was cold, and by the looks on both Yamcha and Tenshinhan’s faces, she knew her eyes were as deadly as a gorgon’s. “If that’s settled,” Chichi spun on her heel, leaving the room. 

It was another two days before Krillin returned with useful information.

It was grim.

“I stopped tailing the leader after he had a meeting with an underling, and starting tailing the new guy. He bought up more blackmarket drugs - barbiturates and other sedatives, that sort of thing -  than I ever would have thought a person would need to buy, and made a…” Krillin made a face, “a rather derogatory remark about the kid’s race while talking with a third guy who came with him to get the drugs. Kid’s gonna be in trouble if they’re planning on using those as a truth serum.” 

“Do you know where they’re holding him, Krillin?” Chichi stepped forward, lips pursed. Krillin glanced at Goku, who nodded. 

“They have him in one of those boarded up apartment complexes. I uh… I came back because I got confirmation that he’s alive.”

Chichi perked up, spine ramrod straight. 

“How?”   


“I could hear him... screaming.”

 

~~~

 

He was aware of the gunshots, and part of brain wanted to be excited about it, but he could not determine why it was that this was good news. The gunshots were calculated, each followed by a thud, and in quick succession. That meant something, something familiar? Piccolo shook his head to clear it, try to clear it. He was having such a hard time...thinking… And he was so tired. He felt like he was drunk, but not the happy drunk he liked being… this was worse than how he felt when he had been caught up in a game of shots with Yamcha. And lost. Miss Chichi had been extremely angry that anyone had given him tequila in the first place, let alone that much of it. Miss Chichi! 

The gunshots had ended, and he could hear footsteps. He wanted to call out to someone, but his tongue refused to cooperate, and all he managed was a pitiful gurgle. 

“Piccolo?!”

“‘Mmmm h… ‘m rrigh’ he-herr,” he managed, voice sounding more like a wet croak than a human vocalization. The light came pouring in too quickly and he cringed, squeezing his eyes shut. Someone crouched beside him, and he cracked an eye open.

“He’s here! Alive, and in need of serious bath, but alive.” 

“Sharrup Scarface,” Piccolo tried his best to snarl as Yamcha roughly cut at the ropes binding his hands and feet. The sniper pulled him to his feet, and Piccolo blacked out momentarily, slumping against the older man until the bloodrush subsided. Even then, it was nearly impossible to remain standing. 

“Shit, kid, they did a number on ya, huh?” Yamcha’s arm was wrapped around him, keeping him somewhat upright.

“Piccolo?”

“Miz Chiichi?” He was dimly alarmed, but also flattered, and he felt his lips attempt a sorry excuse for a smile. She looked like a dragon with a blood covered white cheongsam. “Shoulda worn red, Miz.” The gun on her hip was almost comically large, he thought, even as he reached out a clumsy, drugged hand to wipe away a splatter of blood on her face. He would never have done such a thing with a clear head. But, whatever they had shot him up with had really done a number on his senses. “The firs’ time it wore off, but then it...dinnae.”

Miss Chichi’s eyes were wide and worried, and she nodded to Yamcha. 

“Let’s get him to a doctor,” he noticed her gaze linger on him, probably lamenting his bedraggled appearance. He had been  _ so _ well-dressed when he’d been shot… “What wore off, Kiddo?”

“Buncha  _ meirda _ in a shringe.” 

“Syringe?”

“ _ Síííí, Señorrrrrrrraaaa.” _

Her relief at finding Piccolo alive was short lived as she watched the boy slur his words and cling to Yamcha to remain standing. His eyes were unfocused, voice slow. But he was coherent enough to recognize that he was ...incoherent. That had to be a good sign, right? Then he slipped into Spanish, and started rolling r’s where they had no business being rolled, at least not for any length of noticeable time. After that, nothing would come out in English. It made sense that he would revert to his first language after the stress, pain, and hell only knew whatever drugs were working through his body. 

Goku met up with them at the car, he had gone after one of the men who had escaped Yamcha’s sniper rifle. To her surprise, her husband had not killed the man, rather stuffing the bound and gagged individual into the trunk of the car. 

“Oh good, he’s alive.”

“ _ Se puede decir, Señor, pero no me siento bien. _ ” 

“ _ ¿ _ _ Por qué está tu hablando español? _ ” Goku raised an eyebrow, and Piccolo tripped, making Chichi and Yamcha grab him to keep him upright. 

“ _ Porque no recuerdo cómo hablar inglés _ .” To Chichi’s great annoyance, Goku burst out laughing, which only made Piccolo confused, his tattooed face screwing up for a moment before he nervously joined in. 

“What did he say?” Chichi snapped, moving aside to let Yamcha put Piccolo in the backseat. “Goku, this is serious!”

“He, he, he said he can’t r-remember how to talk in Engl- English! Heeheeheehee, he can’t remember English, he’s so fucked up. He’s so st-stoned he can’t speak English. ENGLISH.” Goku was actually howling with laughter as he forced the trunk shut down over their prisoner, “oof, he’s not living that one down for a good while, I can tell ya.”

“Get in the fucking car.”

“But, but Chichi, he understands what we’re sayin’  _ but he can’t get it out in English! _ ”

She opted to sit in the back with him, keeping him awake until they arrived at a hospital that would not give them any trouble provided they paid upfront and in cash. Besides, the Chief of Medicine owed her a favor. Goku had scarcely stopped giggling the whole car ride to the hospital, and had only really stopped when he and Yamcha had to help the teenager out of the car, and Goku had to carry him. “Man, Kid’s super fucked, huh?” 

While Piccolo recovered from the drugging, the shooting, the bruises and breaks and severe, acute burns, Krillin and Yamcha returned to where they had found him. After a tip from their now-deceased captive, they had found files and other information surrounding the group, and, among other things, a record of Piccolo’s imprisonment.

“We uh,” Yamcha nudged Krillin forward as the shorter paused, “we found a ...a tape.”

“A tape?” Goku hesitated, “of what?” 

“Of them trying to get information out of him. It’s all shit, most of it’s in Spanish from his end and that’s when he even said anything at all,” Krillin continued, handing the tape over. “Guess they figured they’d record it for some reason. We figured we’d show you before Chichi...since … you speak it, and what not.”

 

~~~

  
  


“He never said anything?” Chichi repeated, watching the screen click to black. “None of that Spanish at the end was information?” Not that it mattered, the men who had kidnapped Piccolo were all dead, even if he had caved, there was no one to make use of the information. Still, there were rules about this sort of thing. 

“No,” Goku shook his head. “I couldn’t catch all of it, but most of it was him swearing and then the rest was some prayer he kept repeating. Kid’s got guts” 

Chichi was silent, mulling it over in her head. She and 18 were picking him up from the hospital today, Gohan was ecstatic that his Piccolo was coming back from “vacation.” She was relieved that he  _ could _ come back from “vacation” at all. Gohan would have never gotten over it had something happened to his Piccolo. She pursed her lips.

“And  _ some _ people thought he couldn’t be trusted.” She caught a guilty look cross Yamcha’s face, and Tenshinhan shifted, blinking. Good. 

“He might not know he kept lid on it, after he was drugged. No way he was coherent during the last ten minutes of that. He wasn’t even speaking proper Spanish at that point, I think he said the same line of the prayer over six times before getting to the next one, and even then, his grammar is shoddy.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Chichi stood, still feeling slightly sick from the contents of the tape. It was not as if she was a stranger to torture and torment, after all. But she knew that the boy had landed in this situation because of her soft spot for him. Still, he was alive, and he would recover…

 

~~~

 

“How are you feeling?” It was the first thing she asked entering the private hospital room, 18 remaining in the hallway. She stood, seemingly impassive, a few feet away from his bed, taking in his appearance. The bruises had faded, Gohan would notice them but Piccolo would probably blame it on his newer tattoo getting an infection. The burns were the worst of his injuries after the drugs had been flushed from his system. He had told her earlier in the week that he was more upset that one of his tattoos had been ruined by the ordeal. It had made her smile. 

“Better,  _ gracias _ , but still sore… My hand,” he shrugged, and winced. “The nurse said it takes fingernails about six months to grow back. I’ll wear gloves in the meantime…”

Chichi nodded, waiting a moment before speaking.

“Did you tell them anything?”

The boy’s face paled, making the tattoos and bruises stand out. 

“N-not before they drugged me, Miss, but I…” Piccolo looked like he wanted to sink into the mattress and hide. His left hand curled around the sheets. “I… I cannot vouch for my silence after the drugs. My memories are hazy, but… I do not think I did. I will accept whatever punishment you think necessary without complaint.” He was not meeting her gaze, and she could see the shame on his face. She approached his bed.

“Hold out your left hand.”

He looked confused, but did as she bid. Chichi tapped the back of his hand, as if she were swatting him away from sneaking a cookie out of the jar. 

 

“Miss…?”

 

“Get dressed, we’re going home.”

  
  



End file.
